


Three's Company

by NahaFlowers



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, BROT3, F/M, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Robin/Marian is mentioned, Season 2 Episode 11, Team Castle, Treasure of the Nation, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25536943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NahaFlowers/pseuds/NahaFlowers
Summary: When the Sheriff discovers Guy's plot to save the Nightwatchman, he must save Marian and Allan. Together, they make their way to France and try to learn to live together.
Relationships: Allan A Dale & Marian of Knighton, Allan a Dale & Guy of Gisborne, Allan-a-Dale/Guy of Gisborne, Allan-a-Dale/Guy of Gisborne/Marian of Knighton, Guy of Gisborne & Marian of Knighton, Guy of Gisborne/Marian of Knighton
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

Marian wasn’t quite sure how they had got to this point.

It had all started, of course, when Guy had discovered the she was the Nightwatchman.

More to the point, it had started when he had decided that, actually, he did not want her to be executed for it, despite his previous words. Much to Marian’s surprise, as she had walked up to the scaffold to face her fate, someone dressed in the Nightwatchman costume appeared on the battlements, and after giving Marian a frantic look, Guy gave chase with the castle guards.

For once, the guards were not their useless selves, and managed to capture Allan A Dale, dressed in Marian’s Nightwatchman costume, clinging on to the edge of a well for dear life. He was marched back to the Sheriff’s presence, unmasked, as Guy and Marian exchanged worried glances.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t your boy, Gisborne,” said the Sheriff, dangerously, quietly amused. “You really know how to pick them, don’t you?”

Marian opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Guy jumped in. “My lord, I- I had no idea. In fact, I don’t believe he is the Nightwatchman.”

“Don’t believe? Didn’t you capture him yourself? And here he is, unmasked right in front of us,” he murmured, leaning right into Allan’s face, who wrinkled his nose in disgust. “So, Gisborne, do you mean to say that this was not the Nightwatchman you caught? That your boy is an impostor?”

Guy nodded with difficulty, swallowing a lump of fear and anxiety in his throat.

“Then _why_ is he dressed as the Nightwatchman?”

Guy winced at the Sheriff’s tone and chanced a sideways glance at Marian, whose eyes were wide but clear.

“My lord, perhaps he was trying to protect someone,” Guy said, looking down, skirting the truth.

The Sheriff had noticed Guy’s glance at her, Marian saw with a sinking feeling, and was now narrowing his eyes at both of them. He stalked over to Guy. “ _Protect. Who?_ ”

Guy did not answer, his eyes trained on the floor. 

“Was it your little leper friend?” he hissed. “Well, was it?”

Guy still said nothing.

“Answer me, Gisborne!” The Sheriff slapped Guy hard across the face and Marian stepped forward involuntarily, making as if to help him. Guy, breathing heavily, still did not answer. Marian and Allan exchanged glances.

“Gisborne,” the Sheriff said in a silky sweet tone, “if you don’t give me a satisfactory answer, I shall have them both executed. In fact,” he said, looking pleased with himself and beckoning for a pair of guards, “I might just do that anyway. Guards, take them to the dungeons!”

Guy finally looked up, breaking his silence. “My lord, you can’t do that! You don’t know if they’ve done anything wrong!”

The Sheriff snorted. “Wrong, schmong. I know that you’re not telling me something, and I know that your boy was caught wearing the clothes of a known criminal, and I know that the girl is the only one you’d bother protecting. I’ll have them tortured in the dungeons overnight, and then tomorrow I shall have a double execution! Thank you Gisborne, you’ve improved my day greatly!”

Guy looked like he wanted to say something else but the Sheriff rubbed his hands together and marched away, leaving Guy to look at the retreating backs of the guards and Marian and Allan’s stricken faces looking back pleadingly at him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guy helps Marian and Allan escape from the castle's jail and they make their way to France. They all try and adapt to this new way of life, with varying levels of success.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was posted as part two and part three on tumblr but part two was really short so I've combined them here.

“Marian,” Allan hissed. “Wake up.”

Marian came to her senses to see Allan stood above her, outside her cell. Her confusion quickly cleared when she looked up and saw Guy standing next to him, holding a large bunch of keys. He unlocked the cell’s door.

“Guy, thank you,” she said, struggling to get to her feet.

“No time for that now. Quickly. Before they wake up.” He gestured to the guards passed out against the wall and just outside the door, their mead apparently containing some kind of sleeping potion. Shivering, partly from the cold, partly from the knowledge that she was sneaking out of the castle, at night, surrounded by people who would kill her if they saw her escaping, she followed Guy and Allan up the steps out of the dungeons.

Once they reached the castle gates, she expected Guy to leave them. She was surprised, however, to see that three horses had been prepared.

“You’re coming with us?” she asked him.

Guy scoffed. “What, you think the two of you would last five minutes on the run without being found?”

“I managed to keep my identity as the Nightwatchman hidden for long enough.”

Guy’s jaw tightened. “Yes, well. I’m coming with you. Unless you were planning on taking a little moonlit ride to Hood’s camp.”

Marian winced.

“You were. I knew it.” Guy’s voice was barely a whisper, but his jaw was working hard. With what appeared to be a great deal of effort, he sighed. “No matter now. Come. We must be well out of Nottingham by first light.”

Marian nodded, heart in her throat, as she mounted her horse and the three of them set off.

Sometime later, Allan tried to break the tension.

“Shouldn’t it be Nightwatchwoman now?”

“What?” said Guy, flatly.

“You know, because Marian’s a woman. So she’s the Nightwatchwoman. Not the Nightwatchman.”

Marian rolled her eyes, trying not to laugh.

“Allan?” said Guy.

“Yes, Guy?”

“Shut up.”

“Right you are.”

And they continued riding on in silence until they eventually decided they were far enough from Nottingham and the Sheriff’s reach to rest for a short while, and bedded down at an inn.

* * *

Sat at a table in the inn the next morning, the worse for wear after the stresses of the day before and riding through the night, the three of them were deciding what to do next.

“We could go to Scotland. I think I have a distant cousin up there,” said Allan.

“We’ve already travelled South though. If we go back up North, we’ll have to pass Nottingham again. Or go the long way around.” That was Marian.

“I agree. We’ll put ourselves in too much danger; the Sheriff will already have sent men out to cover area far and wide around Nottingham. I say we go to France.”

“ _France_?” said Marian and Allan almost simultaneously. “Leave the country?” Allan continued. “I don’t know any French. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“I speak a little French,” said Marian. “But do we really have to leave the country?”

“My mother was from France,” said Guy quietly. “I spent a little time there after her death. So I know it well enough.” 

They were quiet for a moment. Then Allan broke in. “So, say we go to France – you have family who will put us up, yeah?”

Guy shook his head. “All of my family but my sister is dead.”

“What about your sister?” asked Marian gently. “Is she a possibility?”

Guy snorted. “She won’t help me. And her husband would almost certainly give us up to the Sheriff for the right price, even if she didn’t.”

“So if we go to France…what’s the plan? You said you don’t have family there, but friends, acquaintances… _anything_?” Allan sounded frustrated.

Guy made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “No, I don’t have any friends, or acquaintances, or a plan, or even half a plan. But do either of you have any better ideas?” He looked demandingly at them, while Marian and Allan just exchanged hopeless glances. “Well?”

“We could go to Robin. He’d be willing to help us out, if I vouched for both of you.”

Guy made a disgusted sound and Allan didn’t look much happier. “What, if you flutter your eyelashes at him enough, you mean?” Guy said, acid in his tone. Marian looked down angrily. “Go to Hood, if you want, but I won’t be coming with you. And you’ll be lucky to get within ten miles of Sherwood Forest before being caught.”

Marian sighed unhappily, knowing he was probably right. “So I suppose we’re going to France then,” she said with resignation. Allan nodded, unsmiling, and Guy raised his eyebrows in surprise at how easy that had been. He cleared his throat.

“Right then, we ride at sundown.”

“Wait a minute, shouldn’t we get going as quickly as possible?”

Guy and Marian shook their heads almost in sync. “It’ll be safer by night,” said Marian, and Guy nodded his agreement. “But we should get out of here.”

That had been almost three months ago, and now they were living in France, in a house that had eaten up nearly all of the money Guy had managed to bring with them. 

It wasn’t much, but all three of them had been used to worse at some point in their lives, so they got by with minimal complaining (most days, anyway).

It hadn’t been easy, not in the least, but it seemed to have gone better than any of them had dared to hope. Both with finding somewhere to live and just generally continue to exist without fear of the Sheriff (they kept on their guard but it didn’t seem likely that he’d care enough about finding them to come all the way to France) and amongst themselves.

About a week after they had arrived, Marian came in to find Guy sat at the kitchen table, apparently staring at nothing. He jumped when she sat down beside him.

“What is it?” she asked, a little concerned.

“Nothing,” he answered gruffly. She waited. “I just never expected to be living…like this,” he said, gesturing helplessly at the walls around him.

Marian wrinkled her brow. “I’m sorry. You didn’t have to help us, you know.”

Guy looked up, surprised. “That’s not what I meant.” When Marian raised her eyebrows at him questioningly, he shook his head, frustrated with his inability to find the words.

“You didn’t have to come with us, either. Why did you?”

“What, you mean why didn’t I stay with the Sheriff, suffer whatever punishment he devised for my part in your escape, and then hopefully get out with my life and possibly land and power?” 

Marian looked him in the eye, calculating. “Yes.”

Guy leaned his head on his hand, not looking at her. Then he glanced up, forehead crinkled, as if he expected to be scolded. “Why do you think?” He snorted.

This time it was Marian’s turn to look down. “That can’t be all it was,” she said carefully.

Guy sighed heavily. “No, it wasn’t all it was. Do you think I enjoyed working for the Sheriff? You saw how sadistic he was, how eager to cause pain and humiliation to everyone around him if they didn’t do his bidding. Do you think I escaped that? No, I got the worst of it,” he muttered darkly. “But I would have borne all that for you.”

Marian barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes. “And what about all those years you worked for the Sheriff when I was not in your life? How did you bear those?”

Guy laughed bleakly. “With much difficulty.”

“And with much cruelty! There is good in you, Guy, I know it. So how could you ever have worked for a man like that? Oppressed people like that only for the sake of meaningless things like power and money!”

“They are only meaningless when you have always had them.” Marian was silent at that. “And you act as if I had a choice.”

“Didn’t you?” said Marian quietly.

“Only between constant hunger and lack of shelter and eventual death, and power, land and money. An easy choice to make.”

“But still the wrong choice.”

“Who are you to say that? Who are you to judge my choices? If you had known me then, you would not have blamed me.”

Marian huffed.

“You are living with two people who would choose wealth and power over poverty and starvation, Marian. You had better get used to it. Unless you would rather run back to England and your precious Robin Hood.”

“I am here, with you. That is all there is to it, I suppose.”

“But you would go back to him, if you could?” Guy pressed, voice breathless and grating.

“Does it matter?” Marian snapped.

The pained look in Guy’s eyes said very clearly that yes, it did matter, but at that moment the door opened and Allan bumbled in, interrupting them.

“What are you two fighting about now?” said Allan fondly, as if this were something he always came home to. Allan seemed to have adapted to life here better than any of them, despite the fact that he did not speak a word of French. Perhaps it was that he was used to sudden changes of circumstance, having lived in the forest with Robin and then in the castle.

“Nothing,” said Marian quickly. Guy, however, was not so willing to let the subject drop.

“Me and Marian were just discussing whether she’d go back to England if she could. Back to Robin Hood,” he added emphatically.

Allan glanced involuntarily at Marian, who was determinedly staring at the wood of the table. Guy, however, noticed his look.

“You _knew_ , didn’t you, Allan? You knew about them.” Guy’s voice was dangerous.

“Knew about who? Look, I’m not being funny or anything, but you’re not making much sense, Guy.”

“ _Don’t lie to me_! You knew she was the Nightwatchman, you used to be with Hood’s gang. You would have known if she still carried a flame for him. So,” he said, slowly, walking to the kitchen drawer and picking out a sharp knife, “does she?”

Allan put his hands up in supplication. “Woah, woah, what does it matter now if she did? Put the knife down, Guy.”

“That’s not an answer, Allan.”

Allan just shook his head.

“And you?” Guy turned to Marian, his voice breaking, brandishing the knife in her direction instead.

Marian stood up, pushing her chair back so hard it fell on the floor, rage in her eyes.

“Yes. Yes, Guy, I loved Robin Hood. I love Robin Hood. I would go back to him if I could. But I can’t. I’m stuck here with you two goons. Are you satisfied now?” The venom in her voice was more than a match for Guy’s most vicious rage. Still, Guy brought the knife closer, until it was almost at her neck. Marian tensed, and Allan made as though to stop him, but froze in his tracks when Guy rumbled a deep “No.”

“So, kill me, then,” said Marian, voice completely steady. “For all the good it would do you. You didn’t manage it when you discovered I was the Nightwatchman, you came up with a whole plan to keep me from death. And then another. But if you want to let all that go to waste then…” She actually had the audacity to shrug.

A vein in Guy’s temple throbbed with temper as his hand shook on the handle of the knife. Then he threw it down on the wooden table with force, and stomped out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

Marian breathed a sigh of relief as Allan relaxed his posture.

“You alright?” he said.

Marian nodded, unable to speak, her heart hammering in her ears as if she’d run a mile.

Allan shook his head in disbelief. “Mad, you are.”

Marian made no comment, just headed into the next room to bed down for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment/kudos/bookmark if you liked and want to see more!

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this fic since 2016 (!) and am still in the process of writing it. However, I've got nine parts now (the first seven have already been posted on my Tumblr) and I've figured out the general direction I want to go in. Hopefully going to update this once a week while I keep writing and try and bring this story to a satisfying ending.  
> These are my three favourite characters in the show and their dynamic is fascinating to me. Comments are welcome and encouraged.  
> Ratings/Warnings/Tags will be changed and updated, please keep an eye out on that!


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